Edgar Froese, band leader of Tangerine Dream and pioneer of electronic music, is on a lifelong mission to find the ultimate sound. His constant quest takes him and his fellow band members to worldwide success, all the way to the Hollywood studios in Los Angeles. At his death in January 2015, Edgar Froese leaves a legacy of 48 years of music history. The film shows previously unreleased footage shot by the band leader himself: For the first time, we see the band backstage, on tour in Europe and the US, at photoshoots with Jim Rakete or on holiday at the seaside. Records and interviews with his wife Bianca Froese-Acquaye, with band members, close associates and fellow artists map the unique history of Tangerine Dream: a tribute to the musician Edgar Froese and the era of electronic music.
This episode tells the tale of what's broadly considered China's most creative dynasty - the Song (960-1279). Michael Wood heads to the city of Kaifeng, the greatest city in the world before the 19th century. Here in Twin Dragon Alley, locals tell him the legend of the baby boys who became emperors. He explores the ideas and inventions that made the Song one of greatest eras in world culture, helped by China's most famous work of art, the Kaifeng scroll, which shows the life of the city in around 1120. A chef makes Michael a recipe from a Song cookbook, while a guide to 'how to live happy, healthy lives for old people', published in 1085 and still in print, is discussed with local women doing their morning exercises. The Song was also a great era for scientific advance in China. Michael steers a huge working replica of an astronomical clock, made by China's Leonardo da Vinci. Then at a crunch Chinese Premier League match, Michael tells us the Chinese invented football! The golden age of the northern Song ended in 1127, when invaders sacked Kaifeng, but they survived in the south. At their new capital, Hangzhou, Wood joins locals dancing by the West Lake, while in the countryside he meets Mr Xie with his records of 40 generations of ancestors. The final defeat of the Song took place in a naval battle in the estuary of the Pearl River in 1279. When all was lost, rather than surrender to the Mongols, a loyal minister jumped into the sea with the young boy emperor in his arms. 'So ended the glory of the Song', Wood concludes, 'but a new age would arise... as in China, it always has!'.
The tale of one of China's most famous dynasties begins with the amazing story of Hongwu, a peasant rebel who founded one of greatest eras in Chinese history. The film takes us to his great capital Nanjing, with its 21 miles of walls, each brick stamped with the name of the village that made it. Following the trail, we go to the Bao family village and see the villagers act a Ming murder story. Like many authoritarian states, the Ming were obsessive about architecture. We see the giant fortifications of the Great Wall, the ritual enclaves of the Forbidden City in Beijing and travel with bargeman Mr Hu down the Grand Canal, China's great artery of commerce right up to the present day. We then hear about Admiral Zheng He's voyages to Africa and the Gulf decades before Columbus, watch the construction of an ocean-going wooden boat 250ft long, and hitch a ride on a replica Ming junk in the South China Sea. As state prosperity grew, so did a rising middle class. Wood looks at Ming culture in Suzhou, the 'Venice of China'. Staying in a merchant's house, he discovers the silk, ceramic and lacquer-making industries, and visits one of the most beautiful gardens in the city. Then on to Macao and the arrival of Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, who hoped to convert China to Christianity. In the cathedral in Beijing, we learn more about these fateful exchanges with the west. Finally in Shaoxing, we visit the house of the 'Ming Proust' and at grassroots the Zhao family in Fujian where the film ends in an elegiac mood with the fall of the Ming in 1644.
Memory is the glue that binds our mental lives. Without it, we’d be prisoners of the present, unable to use the lessons of the past to change our future. From our first kiss to where we put our keys, memory represents who we are and how we learn and navigate the world. But how does it work? Neuroscientists using cutting-edge techniques are exploring the precise molecular mechanisms of memory". By studying a range of individuals ranging —from an 11-year-old whiz-kid who remembers every detail of his life to a woman who had memories implanted— scientists have uncovered a provocative idea. For much of human history, memory has been seen as a tape recorder that faithfully registers information and replays intact. But now, researchers are discovering that memory is far more malleable, always being written and rewritten, not just by us but by others. We are discovering the precise mechanisms that can explain and even control our memories. The question is— are we ready?
Follow astronaut Scott Kelly’s record-breaking 12-month mission on the International Space Station, from launch to landing, as NASA charts the effects of long-duration spaceflight. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carried Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos to the space station for the longest space mission ever assigned to a NASA astronaut". The expedition provided important insights into operational and scientific areas in human research in space and on Earth. Integrated scientific investigations between NASA and Roscosmos will combine resources to improve data sharing among space medical and human research communities, as well as help inform current assessments of crew performance and health and better determine and validate countermeasures to reduce the risks associated with future exploration as NASA plans for missions around the moon, to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.
For centuries, the precise workings of gravity have confounded the greatest scientific minds - from Newton to Faraday and Einstein - and the idea of controlling gravity has been seen as little more than a fanciful dream. Yet in the mid 1990s, UK defence manufacturer BAE Systems began a ground-breaking project code-named Greenglow. Nasa was simultaneously running its own Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project". It was concerned with potential space applications of new physics, including concepts like 'faster-than-light travel' and 'warp drives'. Looking into the past and projecting into the future, Horizon explores science's long-standing obsession with the idea of gravity control. It looks at recent breakthroughs in the search for loopholes in conventional physics and examines how the groundwork carried out by Project Greenglow has helped change our understanding of the universe. Gravity control may sound like science fiction, but the research that began with Project Greenglow is very much ongoing, and the dream of flying cars and journeys to the stars no longer seems quite so distant.
The film shows previously unreleased footage shot by the band leader himself: For the first time, we see the band backstage, on tour in Europe and the US, at photoshoots with Jim Rakete or on holiday at the seaside. Records and interviews with his wife Bianca Froese-Acquaye, with band members, close associates and fellow artists map the unique history of Tangerine Dream: a tribute to the musician Edgar Froese and the era of electronic music.